The Commish

A few weeks ago I was hired to run the baseball programs for a local youth sports organization called Sports Beijing. Interestingly, I made the connection months before we came to Beijing when I Googled "Baseball Beijing". I didn't get connected directly, but found the name of a Twitter user who had both baseball and Beijing in his profile description. I DM'd and followed Peter's account indicating to him why I was in contact, what my baseball background consisted of, and a brief insight into why we were relocating to Beijing. When we finally arrived, a Tweet to @pshloss was one of the first messages I typed into the iPhone keypad. He answered quickly with a welcoming Tweet, and a few minutes later the phone dinged indicating that I had a new email. Peter had CC'd me in an email to director@sportsbj.org and within a few days I was sitting in a Starbucks at the Lido Hotel with the director of Sports Beijing, discussing what I could add to the program.

Sports Beijing provides access to most sports for the kids here, but apparently it had been a few years since the baseball program had a dedicated “commissioner”. I snort laughed when I received the email for the job offer which indicated that I had that title. Commissioner? Seriously? Anyway, I had a few weeks to get my plans together and we started on April 9^th. The training sessions consist of three time slots with multiple age groups in each. At noon we have 5-6 year old tee ballers on one field and 7-8 coach pitch on the adjacent field, about 50 kids total. Devon plays Shortstop for the Tigers in the 7-8s group. At 1:30 the Teen League players show up – another 20. They have a wide range in skill, but seem to be starving for some consistent instruction and a little intensity at practice. When the Teen League workout wraps up, the Little Leaguers show up. 9s – 12s - another 50 or so kids. Parker plays on the Angels. While everyone is listed on a team, the day runs much more like a clinic than anything else. I lead the stretch and throw, then demo the days' drills, then send the “Teams” off to rotate through the stations with their parent volunteer coaches. The focus in all on fundamentals. I try to add in some game situational play at the end of the workout, but as our skill range is so wide, it is sometimes a difficult task.

I do some prep work during the week, writing out the practice plan, distributing it to the parents volunteers, and answering emails, but most of my work in on those Saturdays, and they are long. But they do go by fast as I rove the giant Sport-turf field making sure that the drills are being run correctly, filling in for parent volunteers who were unavailable on that day and fielding questions from parents.

A few weeks ago I received an email from a similar organization based out of Shanghai – Active Kids Shanghai. They were seeking an outside opponent to play and they wanted to make the trip up to Beijing to play us. What an eye opener for our kids!

This past Saturday, while the rest of the clinic was carrying on in the cages and on the other fields, we took two groups of 9-12s, put them in uniforms, hired umpires and played some ball. Our two teams played one another in the morning, then the team from Shanghai showed up around noon and each of our teams played them in turn. It was quite a day. Our kids played great, and for many of them they got to experience the first ever At Bat in a real baseball game. For me, I got to experience my very first sandstorm delay. About midway through the first game with Shanghai, the winds picked up. Hats blew off of heads, dirt picked up off of the dirt cutouts, and tiny particles blown in from the Gobi forced the participants to shield their eyes, cover their mouths, and eventually take cover in the school building. We resumed after about an hour delay.

We got thumped mostly. Our opponents had been playing together for a year, and as a team, this was really our first day. But when we gathered for our postgame chat – rightfield line of course – I looked them in the eye one at a time, scanning to gauge their feelings after losing the game and asked, “well? How'd it feel?”

Silence

“Well?”

“Coach, it was awesome to play a real game!”

On Sunday, I selected our best 15 from the Saturday groups and we played them again.

We got beat again, but the day was great. I got a lot of positive feedback, a few calls and emails about private lessons and the great feeling of teaching the game, really teaching it, to youngsters with so much to learn.

Parker at the plate

Reached on a walk!

Chugs it around third!

He scores!

Parks takes the mound